Light in the Tower
by SniperCT
Summary: The first time Elsa saw a window into another world and another time, she was ten years old. On the other side was a girl her age, and over time blossomed friendship, and then something more. Or, what happens when a lonely girl learns that her powers are not actually something to be afraid of and realizes that maybe she needn't shut Anna out after all.


The first time Elsa saw a window into another world, she was ten years old. It had been a lonely two years since she'd pulled away from Anna and that winter had been even harder than she'd ever experienced. She feared, terribly, what could happen to her family or the castle staff if she lost control, but sometimes all she really wanted was a warm hug.

She was thinking of her sister, of her playing beneath the Christmas tree, when there was a crackling sound, like tearing paper. When she looked towards her window, she could see through to someplace else.

On the other side was a bright room, with paintings piled up against the wall and a girl her age with wide, blue eyes. "This isn't Paris…"

They stared at each other for several heartbeats before the girl closed her hands together and disappeared as the tear closed up.

Elsa rushed to the window, but there was no sign of the girl, though she felt a tingling run up her back. The feeling faded after a few moments, leaving her truly alone.

While she felt that tingling on occasion, Elsa didn't see the girl again until her fourteenth birthday.

It had been a bad day. Her gloves weren't helping as well as they should, and for the first time in forever she didn't hear Anna knock at her door that morning.

In the absence of that familiar sound Elsa realized just how much she'd come to rely on it as part of her routine. It reminded her that Anna was okay, and unhurt, and still out there waiting for that maybe someday when she could let her guard down.

A dangerous dream but a comforting one nonetheless.

Her window was frosted over though she wasn't sure if that was because of her mood or the weather outside. The first time there'd been a blizzard after she'd hurt Anna, Elsa had spent the night blaming herself for the storm. It had taken her mother hours to calm her down.

Elsa pushed her window open, allowing the snow and ice of Arendelle to blow in and mingle with her own. Something buzzed in the back of her head, a tingling feeling at the base of her neck that then ran down her spine.

Like torn paper, the world opened up outside her window.

There were just as many paintings as last time, but more books. Not as many as in the library Elsa frequented, but still an impressive amount. And there was that girl again, her eyes like the sky in the morning over the sea.

"Hi," Elsa said, the storm inside her room calming as heat rose up her cheeks.

"Hello." The girl wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. The tear in the air between them seemed smaller than the last time.

"Sorry." The apology was second nature by now.

"It's not like it's your fault it's winter over there." The girl leaned closer, a smile on her lips and an excitable intelligence reflected in her eyes.

"It _is_ my fault." Her hands shook as she looked down at them, unsure how she could explain or if she really should. The ice spread to the wall behind her and began to crawl up it.

"Really?" The girl looked more curious than afraid, "But how? You'd have to be able to control the…" She seemed to be searching for the word before she snapped her fingers. "... the thermodynamics of... One second I swear I read that the other day…"

She disappeared, returning a moment later with a thick book. Elsa couldn't make out the cover before the girl was flipping through it.

A sound like a pipe organ interrupted her, and the girl looked up as it played some notes. "Oh. I've got to go."

The tear winked out before Elsa could ask her to wait. But the ice receded, and she went to the library to look up thermodynamics.

Elsa was fifteen when she learned the girl's name. _Elizabeth_. It was a pretty name, for a pretty girl, and it slid off the tongue easily. She was fifteen and they'd spend hours at night talking through rifts that grew a little smaller each time. Usually it was Elizabeth doing the talking, and Elsa gazing at her as she did so.

Elizabeth was excited to talk to a princess, especially a _magic_ princess, and often peppered Elsa with questions about Arendelle or the castle or her powers. And she was never afraid of them.

Elizabeth lived in a tower, in a city that floated in the sky based on something called Quantum Mechanics. It was math, and math had always been something Elsa excelled at. Unlike her magic, math could be understood, it could be quantified. It helped soothe her anxiety and with numbers and formulas running through her head she stopped wearing her gloves.

But every time that organ played, Elizabeth would quickly close the portal, sometimes mid sentence and Elsa started to worry about what the sound meant.

On the morning Anna's fourteenth birthday, Elsa found herself staring at her sister's door. Even with the confidence she'd gained, between making a friend and studying the maths and sciences that she'd found very exciting, she looked at her hands, and willed them not to shake as she rapped on the door.

Dat, dat dat dat, _dat_. Dat. Dat.

The door swung open, Anna staring up at her with sleepy green eyes. "...Elsa?"

"Hi." Elsa smiled nervously. "Happy birthday."

Anna looked behind herself, as if she was expecting Elsa to be talking to someone else. "I uhm. Thanks?"

Elsa tilted her head, allowing herself a nice long breath. "Do you want to build a snowman?"

It wasn't until the March after her own birthday that she allowed someone to touch her. It was a casual gesture from Anna while Elsa sat reading in the library, just a hand on her shoulder, a light squeeze that Elsa had barely noticed until it was over.

Eight years after she'd cut Anna out of her life, and Anna still loved her. Had remained optimistic and forgiven her despite everything. Just like that, Elsa realized that love had been the key all along.

The control was slow at first. Hitching and hesitant and coming in fits and spurts as Elsa's anxiety flared up more often than not. But Anna in the day, and Elizabeth her secret companion late at night encouraged her to try new things and push her limits.

Until, shortly before she turned eighteen, her parents were lost at sea and her world shattered. Elsa could have locked herself away, lost herself in grief and depression, but she had Anna. In another world, in another life, maybe things might have gone differently. Elsa didn't know, and she didn't much care to speculate.

It was a few nights after the funeral that the rip between worlds appeared again. Elsa held her finger to her lips, nodding her head towards where Anna dozed in one of her chairs. Elizabeth's expression grew concerned as she took in the redness in Elsa's eyes and the dark underlines beneath them. Unsure of what to say, or how to put her feelings into words, Elsa reached out, holding her palm on her side of the rift. Neither had ever dared to cross that invisible boundary before, and Elizabeth held her palm on her side. Slowly, they both moved their hands, until skin met skin. Elsa shivered, but in quiet, hitching words, she told Elizabeth about her parents.

It meant a lot to her, to have Elizabeth there, a harbor in a storm. It reminded her she didn't have to be alone and once again, when Anna knocked on her door, she let her sister in.

She saw Elizabeth less frequently than she would have liked after that, part of her wondering if it had been something she'd done. But the times Elizabeth did come through, her rifts and tears were barely large enough to fit their hands through. Elsa speculated that Elizabeth's powers were becoming weaker and savored every moment she could with Elizabeth.

By the time her coronation rolled around, Elsa was thoroughly distracted by thoughts of her cross-dimensional friend. As her eyes wandered across the crowd in the ballroom, she could see Elizabeth everywhere; in the dark hair of a beauty dancing in the corner, in the curve of a woman's smile that reminded her so much of Elizabeth's kissable lips.

That last thought startled her. Since when had she had thoughts like that?

_But they really are kissable, and her hair must smell divine…_

As her thoughts started down a new and interesting rabbit hole, someone approached her and Anna. She turned to face a young man with red hair. Elsa had absolutely no idea who he was or where he was from, but she smiled politely and his bearing was certainly noble.

The man bowed low, his smile charming and demeanor non-threatening.

"Prince Hans of the Southern Isles. It's my pleasure to meet you, Queen Elsa, Princess Anna."

"The pleasure is ours, Prince Hans."

"Would either of you be interested in a dance?"

"Oh, no thank you." Anna held up her hands. "I'm still recovering from the Duke. Elsa, why don't you dance?"

"Maybe later," Elsa hedged. She nodded at Hans as he took his leave, then turned to Anna. "He seems handsome. Like one of those fairy tale princes in those books you like."

"Eh, I don't know. He seems shady. Besides, the princesses always get married so fast in those books. Why would I marry a man I just met?"

"Mm." Elsa agreed with that sentiment, and she studied her sister for a long moment. Her fingers itched, her palms too, she could feel her magic inside her like a sleeping dragon.

The only person in the world who knew her secret wasn't even of this world, and yet standing next to her was her sister. And Anna had been important enough to her to shut her out for her own protection.

And shutting her out was now something that Elsa regretted. "Anna, can we speak in private? There's something I need to share with you."

"Is everything okay?" Anna fell into step with Elsa as they snuck out of the ballroom.

"Yes. Probably. I won't know until I tell you." Elsa rubbed at her arm, glancing at her sister nervously. As far as she knew, Anna's memory of her magic had been erased, and Elsa had been fairly careful to avoid showing it to her.

But this was the right thing to do, especially on this day of all days, and the door to Elsa's room closed behind them with a strange sort of finality to it.

"You're acting really weird, Elsa."

Elsa didn't say anything, looking down at her hands with her back to Anna. She turned them over, then slowly turned around. But rather than say anything with words, she used _magic_.

Frost nipped at the air, snowflakes and ice dancing through Elsa's room. A crystalline hare darted between the sisters and an icey owl flew overhead. Elsa's dress shifted, turning into a skin hugging, shimmering blue gown. The last she hadn't even intended and yet she liked the way it felt, and glancing at a mirror, the way it looked.

She lowered her hands as Anna stared, mouth agape.

"When we were children, I accidentally hurt you with my magic."

Anna's mouth snapped shut, then burst open again, "But it's so beautiful!" She seemed to put two and two together quickly, and rushed over to Elsa, taking her hands. "You were afraid you'd hurt me again, so that's why you closed yourself off."

"Yes, but I think doing that wounded you more deeply than my magic had."

"Yeah … Yeah, it kinda did." Anna squeezed Elsa's hands tightly. "What made you change your mind? Why did you let me in again?"

It was a good question, and there was really only one answer. "I made a friend, one who helped me realize I wasn't some kind of monster."

"Oh Elsa, you - wait what?" Anna shook her head. "How the heck did you make a friend, locked up in your room? Unless he's invisible. Which is creepy."

Elsa laughed, letting go of Anna's hands and walking towards her bed. "No, not invisible… Just complicated."

Not for the first time she wished there was some way for her to contact Elizabeth from her side. But the air remained the same as it always was, the universe operating under the same laws of physics it always had.

"Elsa?" Anna's hand rested on her shoulder and squeezed. "Like magic complicated?"

"There's more science involved than magic," Elsa corrected. "The science is kind of hard for me to understand but I've got some…" she looked around, then picked up a journal. "Some notes, if you wanted to look at them?"

She knew Anna wasn't a dumb person, but her intellect lay less on the maths side of things and more in literature. From reading a lot while alone, Elsa thought, guiltily. Anna took the proffered notebook and flipped through it and tossed it back. "Uh, I'll give this another look when I'm _not_ slightly tipsy."

Elsa laughed, catching the notebook. "No hurry."

"So when do I get to meet them?" Anna folded her arms, giving Elsa a considering look. "How does this…" She gestured towards the journal in Elsa's hand. "Wormhole thingie work. In like normal human words."

"I haven't figured out how to get to her," Elsa admitted. "She's always been the one to rip open the doorway. It's a lot like … a tear in space? Come here."

She led Anna over to her desk, where she took out a sheet of paper and drew a line on it with a pen, with a circle on either end. "If you hold the paper flat like this, it looks like a long distance between the two points right?"

Anna nodded, leaning in against Elsa's side. "Okay."

Elsa folded the paper so the two circles touch. "But what if you did this? Elizabeth calls it bending space. So if space is like this paper, and you bend it and … two people vastly far apart can meet."

"So how far apart are you and Elizabeth?" Anna asked, unaware of the sudden jab of pain in Elsa's chest at the question.

"She's on … Earth. In Nineteen-Twelve," Elsa said, quietly. "But Arendelle never existed."

She still didn't fully understand it, which frustrated her to no end because math was _math_. It was a problem further magnified by the fact that _Elizabeth_ didn't entirely grasp how it worked _either_. It was like they were both missing some fundamental equation, something in that Quantum Mechanics that Elizabeth hadn't yet wrestled from the tutor she called Lutece.

"Wait, what?"

Elsa pointed at her notes again. "You'll have to read those because it'll take me a week just to break it down."

"So it sounds like there's some kind of timely-wimey thing going on," Anna mused, tapping her fingertip against her chin, then held her hands out and waved them horizontally. "And like you're traveling on that line but instead of coming out a hundred miles away you're three years from now and surrounded by sentient snowmen. I can't imagine a world without Arendelle. Maybe there's one without Europe at all!"

"We fell down a rabbit hole one night, coming up with wilder and wilder versions of the world." A fond, distant smile found its way to Elsa's lips, "Elizabeth's eyes light up when she's excited about something, and she babbles a bit, going off on tangents. And she talks with her hands a lot and her smile is just _dazzling_..."

"Uh huh." Both of Anna's eyebrows had disappeared into her hair, "Sounds like you _really_ like your interdimensional girlfriend."

"Yeah, I—" Elsa started, shaking her head and waving her hands wildly. "No, no no it's not like _that_!"

But her face was warm and judging by the _ah-hah_ on Anna's face she knew her sister wasn't buying her words. Luckily (or perhaps unluckily), Elsa could feel the hairs on the back of her neck raise at the same time and old, familiar feeling permeated the air and ran up her spine.

The tear was much larger than the ones of the past few years, and a triumphant, if exhausted looking Elizabeth beamed at Elsa. "Elsa—oh wow you look beautiful."

Anna murmured something suspiciously sounding like 'I might be a little sapphic' as Elsa tried to compose herself. "It's my coronation day. Oh, but I didn't wear this for that." She gestured down at herself, "I was just finally showing Anna my…"

Coughing lightly, Elsa stepped to the side a little bit, holding her hand in Anna's direction. "Anna, Elizabeth. Elizabeth, Anna."

"Nice to meet you," Anna said, boldly sticking her hand right through the tear. Elizabeth quickly shook it before pushing it back through.

"Careful, I can't hold this for long and I don't want to see what happens to a person caught halfway through."

Elsa thought of the times they'd risked even a brief handhold. "_Now_ you say that?"

"I've had a lot of time to think," Elizabeth said. She started dropping books through the tear. "But I got some books? And talked Rosalind into—"

There was a crashing sound and Elizabeth looked back sharply. "What…?"

"Elizabeth?"

"There's someone here." Elizabeth picked up one of the books, wielding it like a club. That haunting organ started to play, that tune that Elsa associated with Elizabeth's quick exits. Elizabeth looked back at her, exhaustion and fear in her eyes.

Elsa held out her hand, "Come through, quickly!"

Elizabeth hesitated, staring at Elsa's and, and then at Elsa. The organ played again, the commotion getting louder and there was what sounded like a man's voice.

"_Elizabeth!_"

This time, Elizabeth started forward, grasping Elsa's hand, and then Anna was at Elsa's side, tugging on Elizabeth's book and then Elizabeth's other hand. The rift started to fluctuate and gutter, giving Elsa the momentary horrific thought of Elizabeth beheaded like a guillotine.

"Nnhg!" Anna yanked with more strength then Elsa thought possible, but Elizabeth came through. Elsa lost her balance and landed on her back with Elizabeth on top of her, face pressed into her neck as she clung on for dear life.

Elsa had the briefest glimpse of a scruffy man and some kind of bird _thing_ before the rift closed, winking out of existence like it had never been there. For several heartbeats, Elsa didn't move. Then she put her hand on Elizabeth's back, the other woman warm and solid and _real_ and for what felt like the first time, she _was_ real. And not some figment of her imagination, not someone dreamed up to help keep her from being lonely.

Lifting her head, Elizabeth peered down at Elsa, wide eyes reflecting the same dawning realization. So Elsa did the only thing that made sense. She kissed her.

It was slow and sweet, and a little electric and for the longest time Elsa had trouble remembering something as simple as her own name.

At least until Anna cleared her throat. "Welcome to Arendelle. For the record that's so _not_ the customary greeting."

Despite the scarlet tinging Elsa's cheeks, she couldn't help the smile that broke out across her face at Elizabeth's laugh.

Carefully, they picked themselves up, Elsa keeping her hand on Elizabeth's waist out of fear that she might somehow disappear on her if they broke contact. "Are you okay?"

"Yes." Elizabeth held Elsa's gaze. "This is _much_ better than Paris."


End file.
